Nicholas Lemann

Times CEO Plans “Town Meetings” at the Globe to Address Downturn    read more »

Times CEO Plans “Town Meetings” at the Globe to Address Downturn    read more »

O.K., here’s a quick Choose Your Own Adventure to test your political savvy.  read more »

“How long will it take for him to descend into self-parody?” Stanley Bing asks 10 pages  read more »

Something else bears mentioning re the Viswanathan story. Just about everyone is an Asian-American. David Zhou, the kid from the Crimson who went on national TV after he broke the story is Asian-American. Viswanathan is of course an Asian-American. So, I'm guessing, is my horse, Jon Liu of the Independent (who has teamed up with Shane Wilson on what they call Kaavyagate).

I'm late on everything—I live in the woods—but it interests me because my tribe, Jews, were the first great beneficiaries of the meritocracy: We joined the Establishment thanks to the SAT trifecta. Nicholas Lemann chronicled some of that in The Big Test, a generally fabulous work of reporting and analysis. I say some of it because while Lemann correctly identified the last Tribal Order of the Ruling Class as "the Episcopacy," thereby identifying them not just as WASPs but as Episcopalians, he peeled away from any religio-ethnic identification on the New Ruling Class. In his book he characterized it as a fuzzy rainbow mosaic, Jews, Asian-Americans, other ethnics. That was a bail. The arrival of Jews in the Establishment was clear to anyone who went thru Harvard in the '70s. Jews had podiumed, as they say in the Olympics, and the Jews who had podiumed didn't want to say as much. Might bring negative attention. As if no one had noticed.

Now it really does seem that Asian-Americans have crowded the aisles at the Meritocracy Fairway, and more power to them. Maybe it's a serial meritocracy. A You-go-next kind of thing. Maybe some day these Asian-American kids will exert some equitable influence over our Middle East policy!

When Lee C.  read more »

When Lee C.  read more »

“People inside were literally dying,” ABC News correspondent Chris Bury told The Observe  read more »

“People inside were literally dying,” ABC News correspondent Chris Bury told The Observer over t  read more »

The old debate about the value of a journalism degree became slightly more interesting with the crea  read more »

The meritocracy has been around for nearly 60 years now, but the moral claims that were made for it  read more »

Last week, Columbia University president Lee Bollinger announced that he had hired Nicholas Lemann,  read more »

Lee Bollinger's Columbia Journalism School All-Stars-Anna Quindlen, Ken Auletta & Co.-have been meet  read more »

The official word on Talk magazine has been that it has turned the corner, veering away from those t  read more »

The Big Test: The Secret History of the American Meritocracy , by Nicholas Lemann.  read more »